Sousa Could Change Formation To 4-4-2

Swansea City manager Paulo Sousa says he could soon change his formation and play with two strikers instead of one.

Roberto Martinez used the 4-5-1 formation in his two-year spell as manager and Paulo Sousa has a similar philosophy, using the same system which encourages the midfield the dominate possession and to protect the defence.

The system isn't working too well this season though as we're struggling to score enough goals to win games. We're defending well, but we struggle to score until Sousa changes to a 4-4-2 system during matches.

The Swansea boss told the Evening Post that the squad regularly train with two strikers, and plans are in place to change our formation to feature to attackers.

Sousa said:

'When we have time we often work with two strikers on the training ground,'

'You have seen us play with two when we have needed to and the players are starting to have a good understanding of each other.

'It's difficult to change things straight away, especially when the squad have been used to playing with only one striker.

'But we want to have alternatives and two strikers is something you could see when we have had time to get used to it.'

Sousa spoke about some of his strikers, new record signing Craig Beattie and Stephen Dobbie - who he left out of Saturday's squad at Ipswich.

He added: 'Craig is developing,'

'He is in better condition physically and mentally than he was and he is getting more used to our game.

'But he needs to keep on making progress. He still has a way to go to settle into our game.'

Sousa has confirmed that Stephen Dobbie, who went from first-choice frontman against Queens Park Rangers to not even making the bench at Ipswich, is not injured.

'I took my decision,' he said. 'Everyone needs to fight for a place in the first XI and whoever isn't in the team needs to work hard to make me think my decision was wrong.'